Portugal win ‘one of the worst tournaments ever seen’

Game summed up the tournament: crap. Just an awful game,and one of the worst tournaments I’ve ever seen. I’m glad it’s over in all honesty.

Some points:

1) Pogba was sh**, and was outshone by Matuidi and Sissoko. I said on another thread that Pogba has always left me underwhelmed, and that is still the case.

2) How could Lacazette not get in that French squad? Gignac got in over Lacazette? Can’t fathom that myself.

3) That Portugal squad are one of the poorest squads to win that tournament surely? I watched all their games, and they just didn’t excite me at all. Some good footballers, but as a team they didn’t really do it for me. They were there for the taking tonight, especially after Ronaldo went off, and France will be kicking themselves.

4) On Ronaldo: how was it that he came back on, tried to run off the injury, yet had to be stretchered off? Was that really necessary? Or was he just making sure that all the attention was on him as per usual?

5) Fantastic tackle on Ronaldo by Payet, clearly played the ball.

6) Giroud: No pace, too static, ponderous. He’s another player I just don’t rate. France should have had Martial on earlier,and maybe they’d have had more joy. Instead, they were scared of losing, were too slow, and only started playing when they went 1-0 down. Massive missed opportunity for them.

Can I just say with regards to Payet’s tackle ST, at first I thought he had gone through Ronaldo to get the ball but on second viewing clearly he got the ball first so I can understand why Clattenberg didn’t think it was a foul. However when a challenge is that clumsy and injures the opposing player I don’t see how it can be described as fantastic.

Remember a few years back when Nigel De Jong went through Ben Arfa he won the ball but his trailing leg caught Ben Arfa standing leg and broke it. No foul by definition but clearly not fantastic.

Massive congratulations to Portugal. They had a game plan and stuck to it. Every single one of those players were given instructions, and stuck to it. They took their managers information on board and played it out, and played it out extremely well.

They suffered a set back when Ronaldo came off injured, but even when Quaresma came on, he knew his job and performed wonderfully. Pepe was a beast tonight. Rui Patricio is a world class keeper.

Fernando Santos deserves a massive pat on the back. He had done his homework on the French, set his team up tactically, and even when he needed to change things after 23 minutes, taking off his Superstar, he didn’t falter. His subs were key during the game, especially Eder.

He knew his team needed, target man, someone to hold the ball up and release some pressure but it did more than that. He help link their play up. Along, with introducing Moutinho in the centre of midfield.

It was a bore to watch but as a football coach watching, the way Portugal set up, the use of the subs, and seeing the game change tactically (from the Portuguese side of things), it was enjoyable.

Finally, on Ronaldo. I was gutted for him but full credit to him. He knew he couldn’t continue and came off. I think he would’ve come off straight away but his manager and medical team, obviously wanted to keep him on.

Sometimes he’s criticized for not being a team player but tonight he showed he was and put his team and nation before his own agenda.

The tournament overall was a poor one, teams expected to do well failed miserably, the final itself was nothing to write home about and we were lucky to have witnessed two or maybe three games that got us on the edge of our seats.

Ronaldo goes off but steals the show

So suddenly there is this notion that Ronaldo has a major tournament to his name and Messi doesn’t.

Well, speaking strictly from a neutral point of view. This whole tournament format was so flawed. And yes I am downplaying Portugal’s achievements. They finished third in a group consisting of Iceland, Austria and Hungary. Possibly the easiest group of the tournament. They failed to win even once in their group stages. But the only reason they got out was because four out of six third best placed teams actually qualify from the group stages. That in theory is more teams (in number) qualifying from the group stages than not!

Then on top of that, in the whole tournament they won only one game in 90 minutes, and on paper the strongest side they faced was France. Infact, they were the only team deemed to be strong on paper they faced.

Cristiano Ronaldo? Hardly carried the team anywhere and it was proved in the last game of the tournament.It was their defence which was the most impressive. The partnership and communication between Pepe and Fonte was fantastic, and so was their keeper.

This is a perfect example of how you can win major tournaments easily, not even deserved to qualify from the group technically, and on top of that avoiding all the strongest teams in the knockout stages.

UEFA will have no choice but to revert to the original format to next tournament.

Antics? I think you’re looking for something that’s not there. He got injured, tried to carry on but couldn’t. Went off. Had it strapped up. Sat on the bench, hobbled around the technical area barking orders, hobbled around the pitch at full time then hobbled up to get a trophy. I’m not sure what point you are trying to make. Are you saying he was faking injury?

If Pepe said they won it for Ronaldo it was probably because they felt he was robbed of his chance to shine on the biggest stage as captain of his country. Pepe wasn’t speaking for the whole squad but he is allowed to express his opinion.

It makes me laugh that anything Ronaldo does gets pulled apart and analysed over countless pages on here. Everyone jumps on the band wagon to rip him to shreds. Yet the media and fan’s darling Messi can do no wrong. He gets sentenced to 21 months in jail, abandons his country because he can’t win with them yet no one on here bats an eyelid. If Messi once upon a time played for United though…

In regards to Ronaldo no one can question his ability, he is and will go down as one of the best players ever to play the game. I disagree with everything the specialone has said. As much as I don’t like Ronaldo I appreciate everything he has done in the game.

Liverpool must bridge the gap

We are the sixth most widely supported football club in the world but in term of values we are only the eighth most valuable football club. Why is there a gap between the two lists? Are we slipping down on the most widely supported football club list? Are FSG focusing too much on commercial in USA or our lack of success in the last few years is impacting our commercial growth?

Well you have to consider teams like Chelsea and Man City who’s massive growth has not exactly been in an “organic” fashion. After that, we haven’t exactly been achieving the success that might be associated with the sixth best team in the world.

If we were in the Champions League and getting to the quarter-finals/semi-finals then we might be able to negotiate better sponsorship deals, get more prize money and would sell more merchandise.

I think FSG have done as much as they possibly could to help us catch up on the other top teams in terms of revenue but we’re fighting an uphill battle as long as we don’t compete at the top level.

Outside the UK the dwindling support for LFC is due to the lack of success.

Kids like mine have no choice but clubs that are continually in the sports news winning trophies are the ones gaining more support with youngsters in particular and they don’t care if these titles are bought by rich owners or not.

Sadly we are now paying the price for not doing the right things when we were one of the big boys and it’s proving near on impossible to break back in.